The New York Times reports on how software designers get hands-on with real world objects to learn to think more creatively and intuitively, featuring examples from Adobe and Mike Kuniavsky’s Sketching in Hardware gatherings.

Using computers to model the physical world has become increasingly common; products as diverse as cars and planes, pharmaceuticals and cellphones are almost entirely conceived, specified and designed on a computer screen. Typically, only when these creations are nearly ready for mass manufacturing are prototypes made — and often not by the people who designed them.

Creative designers and engineers are rebelling against their alienation from the physical world.

The article concludes: “Bringing human hands back into the world of digital designers may have profound long-term consequences. Designs could become safer, more user-friendly and even more durable. At the very least, the process of creating things could become a happier one.”

How to thrive in the next economy
by John Thackara
Thames & Hudson
August 2015, 192pp
Abstract
Drawing on a lifetime of travel in search of real-world alternatives that work, I describe how communities the world over are creating a …

Libraries have moved from being the location for search, access and advice to playing a much smaller role within a much larger information landscape, writes a researcher of JISC, the UK charity that champion the …

Almost two years ago, the Photoshop team pivoted to focus its energies and resources on design features and workflows. To be successful, the team needed to understand trends in design and tools, as well as …

Acclaimed anthropologist Stefana Broadbent leads a new "Collective Intelligence" unit at Nesta, the UK innovation charity, that is "looking at ways to support the emergence of Collective Intelligence to solve complex societal issues".
More concretely, they …

SocialTimes recently chatted with Amy Parnell, the director of user experience at LinkedIn, to learn more about what goes into a redesign (or a slight tweak).
What kind of research goes into design changes on LinkedIn, …

Designers, writes Cennydd Bowles in a Design Council opinion piece, have a central role in safeguarding digital products so they not only empower but also protect users.
This responsibility starts with designers’ own output. Design teams …

The first ‘science oven’, launched in 1967, was simple to use but then digital interfaces came along and made things worse. The real problem, according to Charles Arthur, is that microwave ovens live too long. …

Drew Bamford is the person responsible for making the ITC's experience design – how the company's devices feel and work like 'HTC phones' rather than just another Android handset.
HTC's head designer's purvue is focused on …